Nashville debates nondiscrimination bill

BY Advocate.com Editors

January 08 2003 1:00 AM ET

Nashville is the latest American city to debate a measure that would add the words sexual orientation to the city's nondiscrimination policy, according to The Daily Tennessean. Representatives from Lipscomb University and the Southern Baptist Convention rallied at an open meeting Monday to voice their opposition to the measure. Councilwoman Carolyn Baldwin Tucker said the proposal should be defeated because the term sexual orientation is ill-defined. ''The term is ambiguous and cloaked in deception,'' Tucker said. She also added that the phrase could be used to give protection to pedophiles and fetishists.

One supporter of the measure--Gene Floyd, cochair of a local chapter of Parents, Families, and Friends of Lesbians and Gays--told of the discrimination faced by gays and lesbians by relating how her gay son had to leave the city ''to find a level playing field'' in the job market.

Nashville's current policy covers only color, religion, national origin, and sex. The current measure being debated would also add disability to the list of protected categories.